 PhpBB v/s Fud =) (Again?) [message #9228] |
Tue, 18 March 2003 03:39  |
Pda0
Messages: 6
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Location: Chile
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Im impressed with this forum, but I yet have to download it to check out it's code 
I guess phpBB strengths are:
- Huge community
- Stableness. You dont need to upgrade often.
I've fooled around with this forum for some mins and find it very satisfying and fast, though Ive had some usability problems (Surely because im used to phpBB). Phpbb's control panel sucks badly, but Ive read that this one's is way better... I shall see soon 
Anyway, I arrived here because I'm part of a group developing mailing list integration to phpBB (m2f.sourceforge.net), and a user told us of the existence of this forum. I cant wait to test nntp and mailing list functionality of fudforum hehe.. I hope there is no problem with me poking around with your code to get 'inspired' lol.
Well, excellent work, I see you ppl are very busy getting this forum better
.pd
[Edit: The usability prob is that I can't 'cancel' posting a msg. If I clicked on 'Post new Msg', I can't go back unless I click somewhere else on the top menu, then back to support forums! =) ]
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| Re: PhpBB v/s Fud =) (Again?) [message #9245 is a reply to message #9228] |
Tue, 18 March 2003 20:38  |
Ilia
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Thanks for the warm comments, as far as code poking goes the code as under GPL, so any GPL 'rules' apply. But since afaik phpBB is under GPL as well I don't see any possible problems.
FUDforum Core Developer
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| Re: PhpBB v/s Fud =) (Again?) [message #9266 is a reply to message #9245] |
Wed, 19 March 2003 00:27 |
Pda0
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Yes, well actually I already know that there is no legal problem; I was asking if you didn't mind, personally Though everyone must rely on licenses, I tend to think that proper (net)etiquette is always A Good Thing. After all, we would be using your own code to get phpBB better, which in some sense is one of your direct competitors.
BTW, I installed fudforum on a personal machine to check it out. I see that code is pretty clean, though _SPARSE_ of comments, to say the least. Some suggestions:
- The CP is better than phpBB's but still a mess I think this could be fixed by A) Using some little javascript to open/close modules of settings, and B) Split setting pages that are far too long, such as the General settings one.
- Some inline-help on the CP settings would be very nice, for example I didn't quite understand the 'regexp' settings for mails. (I guess it's a perl-compatible s/regexp/settings string?)
- "php.php"... LOL!! I think you should tailor this as a install-specific md5 hash (i.e. ask for a passwd in the install process). Hardcoding is not a good thing for security.
And, some questions:
- Why did you use file-based databases for messages (among other things) ?
- How stable is mailing list / nntp support?
Well, that is for today, too long of a post already  .
Cheers,
.pd
| prottoss wrote on Tue, 18 March 2003 16:38 |
Thanks for the warm comments, as far as code poking goes the code as under GPL, so any GPL 'rules' apply. But since afaik phpBB is under GPL as well I don't see any possible problems.
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| Re: PhpBB v/s Fud =) (Again?) [message #9307 is a reply to message #9266] |
Mon, 24 March 2003 14:38 |
Ilia
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| Pda0 wrote on Tue, 18 March 2003 19:27 |
Yes, well actually I already know that there is no legal problem; I was asking if you didn't mind, personally Though everyone must rely on licenses, I tend to think that proper (net)etiquette is always A Good Thing. After all, we would be using your own code to get phpBB better, which in some sense is one of your direct competitors.
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Well, obviously having FUDforum features being added to phpBB, one of FUDforum direct competitors is not something that I am glad about, I much rather have people switch to FUDforum if they require such functionality. Given the size differences every little bit of publicity FUDforum gets is earned with much hard work and effort so, loosing any little bit of an advantage is unfortunate. But, that said I do realize that your action is a mere formality, which I do appriciate, you didn't have to ask my permission. Utltimately, there is nothing I can or would do to prevent you from introducing similar functionality into phpBB based on FUDforum code as long as there are no licensing issues.
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- Why did you use file-based databases for messages (among other things) ?
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Performance decision, discussed numerous time on this forum before, if you are curious read search the message archives.
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- How stable is mailing list / nntp support?
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At this point it is fairly stable and is used to import large mailing list & newsgroups. Although there are a few people who have reported some difficulty getting it to work, but I believe those are mostly setup issues, rather then the actual script operation.
FUDforum Core Developer
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| Re: PhpBB v/s Fud =) (Again?) [message #9359 is a reply to message #9307] |
Mon, 24 March 2003 20:04 |
Pda0
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Well, thanks a lot for your answers. Good will should always stand in the very core of an open-sourced initiative. I understand your position, and must say that I will try to contribute back to you, whether I directly use your code or not.
M2F was designed to abstract mailing-list functionality as much as possible from the forum logic. This was initially intended to encapsulate changes in phpBB versions, but in the end it opens the door for augmenting any other php-based forum software.
If everything goes well, and you feel this would be good to your project, I would be delighted to help out in maintaining a mailing-list / nntp functionality replacement or plug-in for fud, that is, a fud-tailored version of M2F. As new ideas come, and better ways to handle these channels arise, there's always need for changes. Also, there's the topic of better interfaces and/or installation tools. In short, you may want to externalize mailing-list (and maybe nntp in the future) functionality so to use your time in getting better the forum itself.
Anyway, these are just rough lines and ideas; we shall see what happens next. Thanks again,
.pd
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| Re: PhpBB v/s Fud =) (Again?) [message #9371 is a reply to message #9366] |
Tue, 25 March 2003 13:34 |
Ilia
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Generally FUDforum tries to integrate all of the features it has into itself and avoid external modules because it makes for more consistent code. Allows the user to far more easily enable and use the functionality and so on.
FUDforum Core Developer
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| Re: PhpBB v/s Fud =) (Again?) [message #9395 is a reply to message #9228] |
Wed, 26 March 2003 04:00 |
Pda0
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| Quote: |
Not sure why you are wasting time developing this for phpbb if fud does it already
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Well, the first reason is that I am half the way, and didn't know of Fud before.
The second is that M2F will hopefully be much more powerful
than current Fud functionality, mainly because its so flexible. It will allow multiple ways for bridging channels, and also will eventually support any php-based content management system. This answers protoss' latest comment: As I said in my other post, the forum dev's (imho) don't have time to deeply dive into specific features of mailing list or nntp integration, because they must continue building the forum itself (Im sure there are many requests... are they?)
Though I agree that feature integration is best, this sometimes means that the features themselves are limited. I think this will be the case in this respect, though atm all this idea is mere chit-chat and bla-bla hehe... I say again, we shall see in the future.
.pd
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| Re: PhpBB v/s Fud =) (Again?) [message #9399 is a reply to message #9395] |
Wed, 26 March 2003 15:12 |
Ilia
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Well, there are some counter points to this. FUDforum is a bulletin board application and all of it's components are specifically tuned for that specific task. Meaning that as far as importing data into FUDforum no wrapper or general perpouse application would be faster. If it is faster it simple means FUDforum code needs some tunning...
FUDforum Core Developer
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| Re: PhpBB v/s Fud =) (Again?) [message #9428 is a reply to message #9399] |
Thu, 27 March 2003 15:50 |
Pda0
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I agree, but.. for example, let's say that M2F integrates mbox reading for some MTA's. Some users may not have access to a procmail or forward device, but they may do have to the mbox file. As M2F is concentrated in resolving these type of issues, it would get out a new version with this new functionality quickly. The same thing applies to POP3, IMAP mail extraction, mailing list integration (ie ezmlm)... etc
I doubt you would want to implement all this functionality out-of-the box, at least initially, as you would be overlooking main forum problems, issues and requests.
(Off-topic: The latest reply notification of this thread got to my mail in _GERMAN_!! "Neue Antwort an PhpBB"... DOH)
.pd
| prottoss wrote on Wed, 26 March 2003 11:12 |
Well, there are some counter points to this. FUDforum is a bulletin board application and all of it's components are specifically tuned for that specific task. Meaning that as far as importing data into FUDforum no wrapper or general perpouse application would be faster. If it is faster it simple means FUDforum code needs some tunning...
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| Re: PhpBB v/s Fud =) (Again?) [message #9429 is a reply to message #9428] |
Thu, 27 March 2003 18:21 |
Ilia
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Procmail is a versetile tool that I recommend, but ultimately the script itself will accept data from ANY other app as long as the complete message (header + body) are piped to it. So, to make a cron process or something else would be a trivial hack for almost anyone.
New features are implemented on request, so I see no reason to add something that would be used by a dosen users and have no use for the rest of FUDforum users. Therefor, new things appears generally because either people make a strong case for such features/additions or I think such a feature would be of use.
FUDforum Core Developer
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| Re: PhpBB v/s Fud =) (Again?) [message #9435 is a reply to message #9429] |
Thu, 27 March 2003 20:00 |
Pda0
Messages: 6
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I think you are missing my point: Why isn't fud as popular as phpBB? I guess you can make a list with possible answers. You can start working on each of fud's issues. This is more important than extending fud mailing list functionality!
That 'trivial hack' you propose, is not at all trivial! I tend to think that a good forum is one that can be installed & used by a typical internet user... Im confident that 'almost anyone' _would not_ be able to, say, use fud as a mailing list without problems. Yeah, go on and tell a typical user he must write a hack to import msgs via POP3, then pipe'em to fud =)
I agree fully on your policy for developing features as requested, sounds reasonable. But notice that, in order for this to actually help expanding the community of fud, fud's users should ask for the proper features... and as ive seen this has not always been the case. I see that the typical fud user is very different to the typical phpbb user, correct me if Im wrong.
Uhm i guess im drifting a bit on the topic But hopefully you'll get my idea.
.pd
| prottoss wrote on Thu, 27 March 2003 14:21 |
Procmail is a versetile tool that I recommend, but ultimately the script itself will accept data from ANY other app as long as the complete message (header + body) are piped to it. So, to make a cron process or something else would be a trivial hack for almost anyone.
New features are implemented on request, so I see no reason to add something that would be used by a dosen users and have no use for the rest of FUDforum users. Therefor, new things appears generally because either people make a strong case for such features/additions or I think such a feature would be of use.
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| Re: PhpBB v/s Fud =) (Again?) [message #9443 is a reply to message #9435] |
Fri, 28 March 2003 14:05 |
Ilia
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I am not going to go into why phpBB maybe more popular however I do know that it is so mostly for non-technical reasons. And that's ultimately what I care about.
As for nature of the users I cannot speak for phpBB since I do not monitor their bulletin board and have no idea how their users behave.
FUDforum Core Developer
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